


Happy Birthday to Me

by von_gelmini



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, College Student Peter Parker, Fluff, Inappropriate use of Stark Tech, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Self-Indulgent, Tony Stark Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22702645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gelmini/pseuds/von_gelmini
Summary: Today is my birthday. Have an entirely self-indulgent fic.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

Tony wasn’t one to pout. He would deny it to his dying day. Well, his _re-_ dying day. Honestly, it was ridiculous. He’d spent most of his life with one day never mattering more than another. Especially this one. He was usually busy trying to find an excuse not to come home from school after term ended. Or busy with an internship. Or busy working. Or just generally busy. Which he should be today. 

But life had slowed down a little once he’d been brought back to it. A little more once he and Peter moved in together. With his lover waiting in bed for him every night, he rarely stayed up past midnight in the workshop. Peter insisted that he eat at least one meal a day. Which he did. Breakfast. With Peter. Which he did today. _Exactly_ as usual. Like every single other day of the year. 

Well, not every one. Major holidays were observed now since Peter enjoyed observing them. And Peter’s birthday was certainly never missed. How could Tony forget the day they finally got together? After he’d valiantly waited three years, until the boy turned twenty, to ask him on a date. The birthday dinner ended with Tony asking him to move in with him. When they hadn’t even dated. When they hadn’t even kissed. When they hadn’t even _done_ anything yet. Rushing ahead of the typical schedule, earned him a laughing, but emphatic ‘yes’. Tony had never been one to do anything _typical._

After they got home from dinner, Tony gave Peter his first birthday present. Before they lived together, Peter’s birthday fell in the category of everyone else’s — usually forgotten and then made up with a ‘get yourself something nice’. Tony’d put the kid on his personal account as soon as Strange brought him back from the dead. (He heard his funeral had been appropriately tearful, and he was highly amused by his memorials.) Ostensibly the account access was for the kid’s lab budget and school expenses. But it was unlimited, the same as Pepper’s was, even after their ‘til death do you part’ divorce.

His twentieth birthday present was something ridiculously expensive. Peter objected of course, but stopped when he noticed that Tony had actually been hurt at his rejection. It wasn’t that he was trying to buy Peter’s affection, it was that picking out the perfect present had taken a lot of work. And in this case, writing the perfect inscription (when Tony’s mind didn’t exactly work in that direction!) Of course it was expensive. Tony found exactly what he wanted to get for Peter (and wrote words; actual _romantic_ words!) It wasn’t like he’d ever looked at a price tag _in his life._ Or that he wasn’t a billionaire. A million five was nothing to him. And it was _pretty._ He knew Peter would love the beauty and appreciate the craftsmanship of the delicate wheels and cogs turning underneath the glass. He simply hoped the back of the watch would prove equally as beautiful of a reminder of both his birthday and the change in their relationship. The tears Peter cried proved that. 

That was the end of the price tag argument. Which meant that every year Tony spent _months_ before August tenth planning. (To be honest, he started thinking about it on August eleventh). Twenty-one was a bit more modest. Peter had been asking to learn his way around the garage. Tony found the perfect thing to teach him on. He bought an absolute wreck of a ’70 Dodge Coronet convertible. It had its original Hemi engine — though in about as good a condition as the body. It was a four-seater, so Peter could take his friends with him. But the best part was they’d work on it together for the rest of the year. He gave him the keys at a special breakfast. Tony knew Peter would spend the evening with his friends taking him out for his first _legal_ drinking binge. That was fine with him. As long as they spent the morning together. That set the pattern for the years after.

Twenty-two, the year he got his BS, they left the following day for the start of his present. Peter was _spectacularly_ hungover from the party Ned threw for him (drunk Peter was hilarious as it was found out the previous year, and his best friend couldn't resist.) But the flight attendant made a mean bloody Mary as they flew to Italy. It was the start of an absolutely indulgent vacation that lasted until it was time for Peter to begin his masters' study. Without interruption. By Stark _or_ by the Avengers. Just the two of them.

Last year, when Peter turned twenty-three… well… that was the day Tony proposed. Enough said.

Their wedding was scheduled for Peter’s twenty-fourth. But Tony’s birthday was a month and a half before Peter’s. It wasn’t like he particularly wanted to remember the fact that on May twenty-ninth he was turning sixty and his fiance was going to be thirty-six years younger than him on their wedding day. 

So it was ridiculous to be _pouting_ over Peter’s hurried leave after their breakfast. He’d decided to do concurrent masters in chemistry and mechanical engineering. (He’d _loved_ working on the Coronet.) That meant year-round study. Which he was late for, he announced, leaving with his usual cup of coffee and a handful of bacon.

Going downstairs to the workshop would just give Tony more time to sulk as he pretended to work. So he headed further downstairs to the twenty-fifth floor and his office at Stark. If he was going to be miserable, he might as well actually go down to his office and… ugh… look at whatever Pepper left sitting on his desk since he’d last bothered to show up.

The situation was only made worse by the fact that Pepper remembered. But it was made infinitely _better_ when Morgan showed up for lunch, giving Tony an excuse to beg off the rest of his day to take her shopping after they ate. For which she was already, at only eleven, developing quite the passion. It didn’t help that her dad indulged that passion to an outrageous degree and refused to listen to reason. Pepper was going to be far less than thrilled that the basement of her brownstone was going to be converted into a full lab for their genius daughter. Their shopping consisted of clearing out the nearest scientific supply house. But at least Tony didn’t buy her half of FAO Schwarz this shopping trip. (It wasn’t even anywhere _close_ to half, though that trip claimed Pepper’s attic as Morgan’s playroom. Pepper clearly needed a bigger house. Morgan was a growing child.)

Tony got home very late for dinner (after dropping Morgan off at home and dealing with Pepper’s wrath), but since today was apparently no different from any other, it wasn’t unusual for him to be very late for dinner.

And nothing was missed. Peter was sitting at the dining table, surrounded by books and nibbling on a ham sandwich.

All right, Tony would admit to pouting, and sulking, when he begged off later that night, claiming exhaustion from his and Morgan’s adventure.

After another two days, Tony simply got over it. He was sixty years old for chrissakes. He hadn’t been upset over a missed birthday since he was five. Just because Peter remembered for the past three years, didn’t mean that he was going to continue. Tony would _occasionally_ remember someone’s birthday back in the day. Sometimes, accidentally, even twice in a row. He was busy. Peter was busy. Birthdays were an irrelevant marking of the passing of time. And he had made time irrelevant anyway. 


	2. Chapter 2

Peter made breakfast that morning. Tony knew before he even got out of bed. He smelled the previous failures. He went to shower, giving the kid time to start over… yet again. The omelette waiting for him looked about as good as the one he served Pepper after the Whiplash incident. Before he had his personal chef teach him how to cook. And the bacon was only _slightly_ black around the edges.

At least the kid had learned how to make a proper cup of coffee. But Tony smiled as he ate it. When they were married, and offence wouldn’t call the event off, he would _suggest_ calling his former chef to give a lesson, or three dozen, to Peter. Maybe even save the Queens Fire Department and make it shared lessons for both him and May. 

Peter teased him about being an old man now, officially. Tony took it in stride. He had just turned sixty after all. Then the kid led him to ‘Peter’s’ Star Wars room (that they actually shared, though Tony admitted _that_ to no one [and Ned was sworn to secrecy.]) Sitting in the middle of a new display case was a miniature of Darth Vader’s TIE fighter that was the prop actually used in the filming of the Death Star trench run.

They both babbled on endlessly about the trivia surrounding its use. Including the oft-heard story about how, out of his friend group on Long Island, Tony _always_ played Vader. But new to the story was Tony showing Peter a scan of the schematic he made when he was seven (as the boy-genius son of Howard Stark, every paper he so much as scribbled on had been kept.) He built his own TIE after wrecking four of the toy ones. His lasted the rest of the summer but was lost sometime after he went to school. This one, though fragile and would never be touched, was _infinitely_ better.

Which led to them spending the day on the sofa, watching the ‘original trilogy’, which as always, earned Peter a glare when he referred that way to the only Star Wars movies that existed. Six hours later, much of the movies had been missed due to kissing. But it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen them multiple hundreds of times already. Tony didn’t like to go out on his birthday. Dealing with the crowds of the curious and paperazzi wasn’t his idea of fun. Since Peter had ‘cooked’ breakfast, he started cooking dinner.

Tony was chopping vegetables when he noticed that Peter had become quiet. Not just quiet, but _still._

“I forgot,” Peter said sheepishly.

“What did you forget?” He scraped the onions into a hot saute pan.

“Your birthday.” Peter ducked his head. “I forgot it.”

“You just gave me the best present I’ve ever gotten _in my life._ You didn’t forget anything.”

“Yeah, I forgot. I was so involved in writing my quantum mechanics paper that I forgot your birthday.”

Tony laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Peter shook his head. “No. I forgot.”

Tony’s laugh turned into a giggle. “You mean you raided my ridiculously small collection of recreated Pym Particles _and_ cracked into the safe where I keep the time GPSs to go back in time and fix the fact that you forgot my birthday?”

“Yes!” Peter said in a huff. “You should be angry with me!”

Tony went around the counter and gave Peter a hug, followed by a quick kiss. “Pete, how can I be angry with you for _that?_ You got me two birthday presents. The TIE fighter is great and I love it. But you created _another whole branch_ of the multiverse just so you could give it to me.”

“Two branches,” Peter said, ducking his head again. “I had to go back and convince the owner to sell me the TIE.”

“Oh that is fantastic!” Tony leaned back, still holding Peter around the waist. “Two branches of the multiverse exist where my fiance, the brilliant Peter Parker, was so involved in his quantum mechanics paper that he forgot my birthday.” He brought Peter into a passionate kiss. “You are amazing and you are going to be the perfect husband for me. Because that… that is such a _me_ thing to do it’s not even funny.”

Peter laughed. “It is, isn’t it.”

“Yeah. Why do you think I wrote ‘to the next Tony Stark’ on my glasses and not ‘to the next Iron Man’? You’re almost more _me_ than me. I love you, baby.”

“You’re burning the onions.” Peter grinned. “And that is such a _me_ thing to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> ISTG, I need to make a "Tony Stark is a Star Wars purist fanboy" series.
> 
> * * *
> 
> My Starker blog on tumblr is [starker-stories](https://starker-stories.tumblr.com/).  
> Come on by and visit.


End file.
